“Get the nurse,” one of his rescuers ordered. He knelt down beside Darrin and started to cut his clothes away from his body. “What happened, son?”
Tell him, Yates urged.
Darrin tried to swallow. Someone undressing him wasn't a good sign, at least on Earth. On the other hand, he was grimly aware of his waterlogged clothes pressing in on him. Maybe this was something else, not a prelude to theft or assault.
“We crashed,” he managed to say. It was suddenly very hard to speak. “We ...”
His mind blurred. When he recovered, he was sitting in front of a roaring fire, hot blankets wrapped around his body. Several concerned faces were peering at him, two of them wearing military-style uniforms. The others appeared to be civilians. One of them, a nurse, was supervising a tube that ran from a device down into Darrin’s arm. He looked away hastily, unwilling to see his skin penetrated by anything. On Earth, it was common for even the simplest procedures to take place under general anaesthetic.
“We've been looking for you,” one of them said. The others seemed to defer to him, so Darrin assumed that he was the leader. “What happened?”
Tell him, Yates repeated.
Carefully, piece by piece, Darrin began to tell the full story.
“We’ll find your friends,” the leader promised, when he had finished. “For now, rest. You’ll be no good to anyone if you catch hypothermia and die.”
Darrin tried to object, but then someone pressed a metallic object against his neck. His senses swam and he plunged back into darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The net result played out on the micro and macro scale. Earth’s towering Cityblocks were filled with hordes of unemployed and unemployable men and women, bringing millions more of the same into the world every week; crime was on the rampage, the global infrastructure was breaking down ... the only real miracle is that it lasted as long as it did. But when it fell apart, it took the core of the Empire with it.
- Professor Leo Caesius. Education and the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire.
Kailee winced as she opened her eyes, half-wondering how much of the previous day had been a dream – or a nightmare. Abdul was dead, Barry had forced his way into her ... and then Gary and her had killed him. Was it possible to have a dream that was also a nightmare?
She groaned as she saw Austin, lying face-down on the floor, his hands cuffed behind his back. It hadn't been a nightmare, then. They’d been caught by bandits and ... she shuddered, as she forced herself to stand up. Who would have thought that a covered building was more uncomfortable than the forest outside? But then, it was a prison. Comfort probably wasn't in the job description.
Austin opened his eyes. “Are you all right?”
Kailee nodded. Complaining about her aches and pains wouldn't help, would it? Besides, she didn't like the look of Austin’s hands. They were starting to turn purple, an unpleasant-looking colour that chilled her to the bone. But what was worse was the knowledge that they were completely alone. Or were they?
“The others are dead,” Austin said. “I’m sorry.”
There was something in his tone that warned her not to press any further. She squatted on the ground, trying to force blood to circulate through her body ... and mourned, silently, Samantha’s death. Perhaps she should have spent more time with the other girls ... but she had been too used to keeping her distance. Other girls could be helpful – and they all walked home together, seeking safety in numbers – but they could also be a liability. In hindsight, maybe her dream of becoming an actress had left her deprived in other ways. She would have liked a real confident, just one.
But she couldn't talk about Barry with either Gary or Austin.
Pushing the thought aside, she stood and walked over to Austin, then knelt beside him and started to massage his wrists. The metal cuffs bit deeply into his skin, leaving ugly marks and risking permanent damage. Once – it seemed like years ago – a young girl had been tied up and stuffed into a locker by a gang of older bullies. Kailee had watched when she tumbled out, still bound hand and foot, then turned away. It was dangerous to show too much compassion on Earth. She winced in pain and guilt. The damage had never quite healed, years later.
“I’m sorry too,” she said. “What did they say to you?”
“Nothing,” Austin said. “They just put me in here with you.”
“They want to trade us for ransom,” Gary said.
Kailee jumped. She hadn't even realised he was awake. But Gary would probably be a light sleeper too, just like her. Barry was dead, yet he still haunted their dreams.
“I doubt they’ll get much,” Austin admitted, darkly. “The government wouldn’t pay ransom for you.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Kailee said. She shivered, remembering what the doctor had told her. If she were lucky, she might have a husband or set of husbands who didn't beat her too badly while forcing her to carry her children. And if she were unlucky ... she might be regretting killing Barry before too long. “What about you?”
“My father might pay,” Austin said. “But I don’t know what he can afford.”
He broke off as someone rattled the door, then opened it. Three men stepped inside, four more waiting outside. The leader motioned Kailee aside, then bent down and removed the cuffs from Austin’s wrists. He immediately sat up and started to rub at the bruised skin.
“There is only one way out of this camp and it is heavily guarded,” the leader informed them, as he motioned for the prisoners to stand up. His comrades tossed clothes at them, which they scrambled to don. “If you try to run, we’ll cripple you permanently.”
Kailee nodded, remembering the crippled men she’d seen the previous day. There was no need to shackle their legs, not when they could simply be crippled, making it impossible to run fast enough to escape. She lowered her eyes, but glanced around from side to side as they were led out of the prison and down past a series of houses. The one right at the end of the row was easily twice as big as the others, with enough turf on the roof to keep it well hidden from prying eyes. Inside, there was a small table, with a selection of food. Kailee felt her mouth water as she looked at the meal. Her stomach rumbled, hungrily. She would have eagerly devoured ration bars, if they had been available.
“Please, sit,” a new voice said. The man stood at one end of the table, studying them thoughtfully. His accent was ... odd. There were traces of Earth, but also of something else, something maddeningly familiar. “I dare say letting you starve to death would not be helpful, would it?”
Kailee sat and stared at the food. The chicken smelt heavenly ... she barely realised her hands were moving until she picked up a drumstick and began to eat rapidly. Beside her, Gary and Austin did the same, swallowing food as if they feared it would go out of fashion. The bandit leader chuckled and warned them not to eat too quickly or they would choke, but they ignored him. All that mattered was eating as much as they could.
“Now,” the bandit leader said, when they were done. “Tell me about Earth.”
Gary looked up at him, emboldened by the food. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I do,” the bandit said. He gave them all a thin smirk. “What is happening on the planet now?”
Kailee had learned to dread Aunt Lillian’s interrogations. The woman had the nose of a bloodhound when it came to spotting lies and deceits, then slowly worming away at her victim until the truth was exposed, cringing in the corner and trying to hide from prying eyes. But the bandit leader was, if anything, even worse. He asked questions, listened to the answers and then asked more questions, poking and prodding away at the truth as a child might prod at a sore tooth. Kailee had never really appreciated just how little she knew of Earth, despite having lived her entire life on the planet. And even Gary couldn't answer all of the leader’s questions.
“Makes you wonder, doesn't it?”
She looked up at the question. “Wonder what?”
“Meridian is supposed t
o receive a colonist shipment every month from Earth,” the leader said. “For the past two years, however, shipments have been reduced. There was a gap of four months between the previous shipment and the shipment that brought you to the planet.”
He smiled. “And the number of freighters visiting the planet has dropped too,” he added, looking directly at Gary. “I wonder what it means.”
Kailee tried a diversionary tactic she'd leant from Aunt Lillian. “What do you think it means?”
“I think that, one day, the starships will stop coming altogether,” the leader said. “And who knows what opportunities will arise on that day?”
Austin leaned forward. “Opportunities to do what?”
“We shall see,” the leader said. He nodded to his men, who hauled Kailee and the others to their feet. “Until then ... we shall find work for you to do. I suggest you work hard. There are plenty of ways you can be punished without causing permanent damage.”
Kailee was still mulling it over when she saw the doctor. “Come with me,” the doctor ordered. “I need an assistant in the ward.”
Calling it a ward, Kailee decided, was a sick joke. No one in their right mind went into a hospital on Earth, not when the doctors were often untrained, underequipped or forced to prescribe medicine that might not have been properly tested. From what she’d heard, real doctors were in such high demand that they never had to go into the cityblocks. Even the ones who did insisted that their patients sign away all their rights before treatment. The danger of a lawsuit was just too high.
The three patients in the ward looked as if they would have preferred Earth. One man had a nasty wound, another looked as though he had been in a fight ... and the third, a pregnant woman, appeared to be on the verge of giving birth. The room itself smelled funny, as if the doctor could no longer even be bothered to clean. Kailee remembered Austin’s lectures on the importance of hygiene and shuddered.
“That will be your first job,” the doctor said, when Kailee pointed it out. “Clean this room.”
Kailee cursed her own tongue, but got to work. At least it was better than the alternative.
***
“Welcome back to the world,” a feminine voice said. “How are you feeling?”
Darrin hesitated. In truth, he felt bleary. And yet he no longer felt hungry or tired. That was a plus, he told himself firmly, even if he couldn't recall eating. After everything he’d been through ... memory flickered in his mind and he jerked upright. Austin and the others were still trapped, still prisoners!
“Relax,” the voice told him. “How are you feeling?”
Darrin looked around. A middle-aged woman was standing at the head of his bed, examining him with calm eyes. She wore a white smock that made her look like a nurse from one of the Naughty Nurse flicks ... no, she was a real nurse. He pushed that thought aside before it showed on his face and swung his legs over the side of the bed. They wobbled the moment he tried to stand up, leaving him feeling helpless, unable to move.
“You didn't eat very well,” the nurse informed him. “I’ve injected you with various nutritional supplements that should start making up the shortfall, but I would advise you to remain lying down until you feel better. Thankfully, you didn't catch any form of illness from being in the river. Didn't it occur to you to walk down the side of the river instead?”
“I was too tired to move under my own power,” Darrin said. His head spun a little when he tried to stand up for the second time, then stabilised. “I had no choice.”
He looked up as a dark-skinned man stuck his head into the room. “Laura, can I speak to him now?”
“If he feels up to it,” the nurse – Laura – said, tartly. “Young man?”
Darrin nodded, quickly. “I'm ready.”
The man stepped fully into the room and walked over to Darrin. Up close, he reminded Darrin of Yates; he had the same easy confidence and inner determination that Darrin had so envied. But there was something about him that was less ... polished. Darrin wasn't sure if the man was reassuring or intimidating.
“I’m Colonel Nick,” the man said, shortly. “For my sins, I am the local commander of the militia. I need you to come with me.”
Darrin nodded and stood up. Nick put out a steadying hand, but Darrin forced himself to stand on his own and walk towards the door. The colonel walked past him and led him out of the small building, then down towards a long low building at the centre of the settlement. A man carrying a rifle stood on guard outside, wearing a khaki uniform and glaring around him as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. Darrin wondered, as Nick led him past the guard and into the building, just why the planet needed a militia in the first place.
Stupid question, he told himself. The people who captured Austin might threaten settlements.
Inside, there was a large table, with a paper map spread out on it. Darrin had never even seen a map before coming to Meridian, but it seemed easy enough to understand. Sabre City was at one end, with the Jordan running past the city and flowing down into the sea. That meant, logically, that they had to be further up the map ... he studied it for a long moment, then pointed to where he thought they were. It was the settlement furthest from the city.
“Good,” Nick said, when Darrin explained his reasoning. “Which leads neatly to the next question. Where exactly is the bandit camp?”
Darrin looked down at the map – and swore at his own stupidity. Of course the goddamned camp wouldn't be marked on the map! Nick bounced question after question off him, looking for landmarks or anything else that might have led them to the camp, but the best he could do was point to where he thought he’d found the river.
“I thought that orbital satellites saw everything,” he protested. There’d been a pair of Stellar Star movies where her antics had been faithfully recorded from orbit. “Can't you simply find them?”
“Our network isn't exactly mil-grade,” Nick admitted. “And it isn't comprehensive in any case. Otherwise we would have found you without needing to look hard.”
He led the way over to a computer screen and tapped a switch. “We had to swing a satellite over to look for you, after we realised that your plane was badly overdue,” he said. “It still took us some time to locate the crash site and dispatch another aircraft. We picked up your friends, but we couldn't find you.”
Darrin found himself smiling. “Steve and Li are alive?”
“They’re both suffering badly from malnutrition – in Li’s case, her broken leg needed immediate medical attention,” Nick said. “But they’re both alive. We shipped them both back to the city.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” Darrin said.
“So show me,” Nick said, turning the display so Darrin could see clearly. “Which way did you go?”
Darrin swallowed. They’d walked eastwards; they had to have walked eastwards or they would have missed the Jordan completely. That much he knew. And they’d swum in a lake at the bottom of a valley ... it was hard to be sure, because everything looked different from high overhead, but he thought he knew which lake it had been. And then ... there had been a rainstorm ...
A thought struck him. “We left the bodies there,” he admitted. “Can you find them on camera?”
“Maybe,” Nick said. “Can you show me where?”
“A clearing,” Darrin said. But there were hundreds of clearings. He tried looking for the gorge, where Samantha’s body had been buried, yet it seemed invisible. It was buried deep under the treetops. “We’d just have to look for it.”
Nick picked up a communicator and muttered orders into it. “We don’t have many trained observers, nor do we have spy software,” he admitted. “Everything the satellites show us has to be studied with the naked eye. It takes too long to get anything done.”
Darrin shook his head in disbelief. They’d been told that Earth was the safest place in the galaxy, that a child could be found within seconds if necessary ... but they’d all known that was a lie. It was common for people
to go missing and never be found, ever. No one even bothered to look, as far as he knew. The Civil Guard would be more likely to arrest than help anyone who came to them, no matter who they were. But now, on Meridian, even the infrastructure to find someone didn't exist.
“Sit down and rest,” Nick urged. He must have sent a signal of some kind, because two minutes later another uniformed man came in with a plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of orange juice. “Eat something, then relax. You’ve done fine.”
“Well enough for the Scouts?” Darrin asked. “Austin was always telling us about them.”
“He’s a troop leader – he should,” Nick said. “Tell you what; you join them when you get back to Sabre and try and qualify for the militia set of badges. If you get them all, I’ll put in a good word for you at the recruiting office.”
Darrin blinked. “The militia set?”
“Surviving, sharpshooting, camping ... a handful of others,” Nick said. “All skills the militiamen need. You get them, you get your chance to join us.”
“Thank you,” Darrin said. He would have to work to earn them, he realised, but it would mean more to him than something he’d been given, like the awards on Earth. Everyone knew that a student could graduate just by signing his or her name on the exam sheet, but in that case the exams were worthless. “I’ll do my best.”
Nick glanced down at his communicator. “Got something here,” he said, looking over at the computer. “Two bodies; both in plain view.”
Darrin peered over his shoulder, trying to recollect the path to the bandit camp. “I think they’re here,” he said, finally. “I think ...”
“Close enough,” Nick assured him. He smiled, brilliantly. “You can rest now, I think. You’ve done more than enough.”
“I want to come with you,” Darrin said. “I need to be there.”
“You’d just get in the way,” Nick said, but he seemed understanding. “Understand this; if you come, you stay at the rear and obey orders. If you get in the way, I won’t hesitate to cuff you and leave you on the boat. You don’t know what you’re doing. My men do.”
The Empire's Corps: Book 07 - Reality Check Page 34